One of my favorite behavior management strategies is to send out handwritten notes on pretty cards with no return address. Most of the time, the notes are good news: I write to parents when their kids have improved their grades, worked hard on a project, been unusually kind to a classmate, etc.
Every now and then, the notes are less pleasant. If I have warned a kid to settle down in class multiple times, with no sign of improvement, I’ll send a little message to the child’s parents, letting them know that we have an ongoing behavior issue that needs to be addressed at home.
Here are the keys that make this system so effective:
- I send out far more positive notes than negative. Within the first month of school, I try to send every child’s family a note praising something about the child. This gets the parent on my side and makes it far more difficult for a kid to pull the “my teacher is just picking on me because she hates me” card if I have to send out a critical note later.
- Even my critical notes have an upbeat tone. Whenever I send a note asking a parent to help address a behavior issue, I praise the child’s good qualities, express concern for the child’s future, and spin the misbehavior into a potential asset (e.g., incessantly cutting up in class = wonderful sense of humor). Most people aren’t going to get defensive if a teacher says, “I care about your kid and want him to be successful, which is why I’m asking you to help me channel his gifts in a more productive direction.”
- I make the notes virtually impossible to intercept. They come without warning, on cute stationery, with no return address. They are always handwritten, but I always switch up the lettering style on the envelopes; the colors of the envelopes; and the ZIP codes from which I send the notes. It’s hard to intercept a letter if you don’t know it’s coming and can’t tell it’s a note from your teacher because it looks like a random greeting card. (My favorite was a fun little Halloween card I picked up at Walmart one night and sent to a guardian whose grandsons were failing English because they refused to do any work. She found the incongruity between the card and its contents absolutely hilarious and happily agreed to send the boys to my next after-school makeup work session so they could get caught up.)
The snitch notes are useful, but the real power lies in the positive notes. I’ve had parents call me to tell me that I’m the only teacher who has ever reached out to them to tell them something good about their child. I’ve had kids message me on social media several years after graduation to share pictures of the notes I sent to their parents, which have turned into cherished keepsakes. And I’ve seen notorious troublemakers straighten up and apply themselves in my class once they realized I cared enough to make them look good to their parents.
I really need to spend more time writing notes to parents. The payoff is always worth the investment of time.
Foolish Wand-Waving 